Automotive Science or Voodoo?

Comments

Just wanted to express my sincere thanks to all of you who responded to my emails for advice. The wealth of knowledge and exprience on this site about diesel engines speaks for itself. You have all given me a lot to think about and questions I can put to the team representing this inventor.

I am going to be meeting with them on Tuesday 14th next week to receive a presentation and ask as many questions as I like. You can bet that I will be putting many of the points you identified to them.

Just to answer one of the questions raised by John500 regarding the lease strategy versus purchase. Apparently the list price for one these items is approx $20,000 . This was percieved as being prohibitive for truck owners to find, therefore the inventor has a deal with a lease company (financial house) who purchases the unit up front but leases the unit to the truck owners over a 3 year term. At the end of the lease the truck owners pay a greatly reduced peppercorn rent but never own the device. The peppercorn rent entitles the truck owners free software upgrades as required.

Apparently the inventor also has an insurance policy which indeminfies the truck owner against any damages or loss for the first year should the product malfunction in any way. I believe there is also reduced cover for years 2 and 3 but I'm not sure what the terms are.

I know this may all be pie in the sky and I wish I had some decent knowledge about diesel / LPG engines, however at least I've been fortunate to find this site and ask the wealth of experience on it, THANK YOU ALL once again

If nobody has any objections, I would like to keep you all posted as to the outcome of the meeting, who knows, if it turns out to be genuine, the world is a big place and you may want to exploit the opportunity for yourselves

I just happened on this site and so am throwing this out. As soon as it is posted I plan to duck out of the way of incomming jibes. Go to pureEnergySystems.com and check out artical on acetone in fuel. I did a short term in the last week or so trial with no real difinitive results, but will throw them out there anyhow. My little car which always gets 26 mixed driving did get 30 mpg for the first time. I will run long term to check this out further. My diesel ford 250 seemed to run nice and I was at 450 miles on a tank before I put fuel in it, only a half a tank as it is being sold in the morning. The only significant thing here is, I need to fill up when traveling before 400 miles on the highway and this tank was stop and go and mixed. Interesting enough to follow a little further with this from my view. Br

You know though, an article written by a chemist telling you that acetone dissolves the compounds of which fuel injection seals and O-rings are made isn't a "jibe" exactly-- it's a fact that one should give serious consideration.

PureEnergySystems also says this, by the way:

"CAUTION: Acetone degrades cheaper plastics. While we would expect that all components used in all automobiles would be of a more durable nature, this may not necessarily be the case."

One screw up in your fuel injection system and all the gas "savings" are out the window, BIG TIME.

That thought came to me also considering some of the shody shorcuts that seem so prevalent in manufacturing today. However I did read that some of the additves that are commonly used in fact contain acetone. I am not advocating their use either, just searching for a way around big industry price gouging on fuel, but that is an issue for another forum. Perhaps we should go to mopeds and park our suvs. BR

You know, if acetone were some sort of trouble-free miracle, it'd be in all the pumps in all the gas stations in all the world, but it isn't, because it isn't. People will tout "conspiracy theories" time and time again, but in fact it is totally impossible to suppress any product that is so readily available to everyone as acetone is.

If it were all true, a gas station could easily add it to their underground tanks and totally annihilate every other gas station within a five mile radius.

A general question,Does anyone know of a company that designs software for an OBD-II interface that apply's a little expert knowlege and suggests to the user what could be the cause of poor / off-design fuel economy? Is it even practical?

It seems many posters in the past few months are complaining of poor fuel economy (no surprise with the cost of fuel right)?

While the OBD-II interface can be used to read and reset codes and look at real-time parameters for different devices that are monitored, it would seem there would be a market to design software that would help localize the root cause of poor engine fuel economy / performance. I realize they can help locate causes of poor emissions, but what about the fuel economy portion of the equation?

This doesn't sound like the right approach to me....ultimately, ANY computer read out is only as good as the person reading it, and I don't think you can actually nail down anything certain using software like that....I would think it would be better to do a real world dyno pull or two and read out the tailpipe. Then you have some "real" numbers.

I guess I meant that what could you learn that wouldn't already be throwing a code at you with the normal diagnostic scanning?

If you are experiencing very poor fuel mileage, below EPA, but no codes are being thrown, then I think maybe you need to be looking at say a conspicuous drop in horsepower...where the engine has lost power/efficiency but not due to a defect that the computer will recognize.

For instance, (and I don't know the answer to this, so....) how would a dyno react if you let 20 lbs of air out of the tires?

Or throwing it another way, could software tell you that your alignment is way out and that you are literally dragging your tires along? Probably not.

hmmm. let me try this: in my domain, there are mathematical models for unit operation, and the transducers that monitor and thus also control unit operation have an expected range of values at various operation points. we know for example by a particular transducer reading low, that there is a problem with unit efficiency, and we can validate the sensor, based on the other sensor readings.

without such a model, how do you know if a sensor is drifting, or out of calibration or "clogged"? it might not be tossing a diagnostic code, and yet it's not operating properly either. therefore, the engine may be running to a sub-optimal condition.

this isn't my domain, but yeah, when someone says they are getting 17HWY, and the vehicle is supposed to be getting 25 (and everyone else is), and there are no codes, yeah, i think the sensor is "bad", but still providing a within-range measurement that is being acted upon to the detriment of the combustion cycle.

really, i don't think sensor validation is as critical in a vehicle, nor do they want tight tolerances, because of the false positives and desire for running reliability...this then comes at the detriment to detecting loss of efficiency due to the transducer measurement itself.

am i totally duped? i don't know...this isn't my domain of expertise, but I got a sneaky suspicion that the car makers are using adaptive control within limits, and are diagnosing transducer failures within limits, but in the realm of possibility are vehicles runnning needlessly derated. they ain't tossing codes (till something like the CAT is fully gone), or the wires are falling off the 02 sensor. meanwhile, the person is just burning gas faster than necessary.

can you catch this during emissions testing time? i don't know - can you and have the vehicle not pass?

Yes in fact I distribute the product. I have used BlueSky in every car I own every time I fill up. I have been doing this for the past six years. I have spent thousands of dollars testing BlueSky here in California and in Mexico, Japan, Europe and Sri Lanka. It was originally developed for diesel fuel and we found it to work very well in gasoline as well as bio-diesel, ethanol & methanol.

It is not a device but a liquid fuel additive one adds to your fuel every time you fill up. Use about 1-ounce for every ten gallons of fuel. It will clean your fuel system & combustion chamber. The theory behind all this is that you will have an even dispersement of fuel in the combustion chamber which has been cleaned. This clean combustion chamber, free of carbon build-up will provide the best environment for a 'complete burn' of the fuel. This means the more fuel gets burned=less pollution and more power! If you have a dirty fuel system or combustion chamber this will maximize your fuel consumption and may improve it substantially. Thank you for the opportunity. If you have any more questions please feel free to contact me.doug

This seems counter-intuitive, since a light carbonization of the fuel chamber would increase compression and hence power. I don't see the relationship of carbon to a "complete burn" one way or the other.

I could see where a fuel injector CLEANER would give a better spray pattern but this has nothing to do with the combustion chamber.

If the claim is that the additive changes the chemical composition of gasoline itself, I'd like to see the science behind that claim and what molecular changes have occurred.

Hello, I am having idle problems with my 1998 Chevy Cavalier Z24. The car runs great when I first start the vehicle but after it warms up it will start running poorly. It is most noticable after it warms up and then I shut it down for a few minutes (like running into the store), after I re-start the car it accelerates terrible. Idles fine but won't accelerate. I borrowed a Actron Autoscanner from a buddy of mine and ran diagnostics on the vehicle, this is what I got: